10 Apr 2011

Dave G3UUR pointed me in the direction of the 1961 American Heathkit catalogue in which I found the EW19 electronic workshop kit. My memory had this as the EW1, but I must have got this wrong. My mum and dad bought me this for Christmas 1961 and it was this that got me started in radio as a hobby. The Medium Wave radio was used for my first DXing late in the evenings. Also, the simple MW transmitter (using the crystal earpiece as a mic) got me across the house - my first transmissions.

3 comments:

It's hard to tell from the picture but it looks similar to the Philips Electronic Engineer kit that I got, also in the early '60s, which is what got me into the hobby.

Curiously enough, at the NRSA show at Blackpool yesterday I noticed a trader had a similar solder-free kit to build a radio, but was lamenting that kids today just aren't interested. I guess that in an age when kids have cellphones and computers, a simple radio doesn't have much magic.